Saturday, January 22, 2011

Delonte West: The Missing Piece

Over the past 10 games Nate Robinson's shooting has been wildly inconsistent, and while he's been streaky over his career, most of these shots are one's that you almost guarantee him to make. In other words, he's missing "HIS" shots. Along with Nate's hot and cold shooting has come some very questionable decision with the ball, missing players coming off screens wide open, threading the needle when it's not necessary, and of course pulling the trigger on shots when it's abundantly clear that he should just reset the offense. But can anyone blame Nate for all this?

With Rondo's injury Robinson was asked to play starting point guard, and he did pretty well. But that of course was with the starters. Since coming back to the bench it's beginning to appear that Robinson doesn't work very well as a true point guard. He's a player who is most affective when he has his eye on the rim. When he's responsible for everyone else's shots he appears to get a little overwhelmed. Luckily for The Celtics, he's not too far away from being relieved of that duty.

On January 20th Delonte West was cleared to handle the basketball without a brace on his right wrist. This is the first time he's been able to properly handle the ball since he broke his non shooting wrist back in November. West has kept his cardio up while absent from the team, and has even been shooting with one hand quite successfully. While Delonte is still 2-3 weeks away from making his actual comeback, the return will provide Boston with depth that his has yet to see this year.

With Delonte you get a player who understands how Doc's offense works, he understands where to get his shots, and he understands how to defend in the NBA at both the point and shooting guard positions. With West returning as the quarterback for the second unit, this will have a positive impact on almost every other player on the team. Nate no longer has to worry about running the offense. Ray Allen can get more rest as the year goes on. Rondo won't have to run both units for 40+ minutes every night. And every big man that plays on the second unit now has a guard who understands how to set them up. Mark my words, Delonte West is a very important part of what Boston is planning.